Brautigan wrote and published several stories that were never collected in a volume of his works.
Information and resources are provided here for each of Brautigan's known, published, and uncollected stories.

Uncollected stories are grouped here by the year of their first publication, beginning with the earliest.

"The Short Story"
Why is a short story short?
Ask that man sitting on a bench in the park, any park, but be prepared, for he might tell you a story longer than you would want to listen to.

First Published

"Four Stories for Aki and Other Treats." California Living 14 Jan. 1979: 5-7.
The magazine of the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle.
Described as "a compendium of short stories." Featured seven stories: "The Short Story," "Walking Toward December," "The Purpose," "Meat," "The Great Golden Telescope," "Harmonica High," and "Her Last Known Boyfriend." The first two stories: "The Short Story" and "Walking Toward December" were not collected. The other five were all collected in The Tokyo-Montana Express. The last, "Her Last Known Boyfriend" was retitled "Her Last Known Boyfriend a Canadian Airman."

"Walking Toward December"
8 o'clock in the evening: I am walking down a street of closed shops and few people. It's Sunday, a day of rest. The shops are resting. People are in their homes waiting for Monday and work.
It is late August but soon it will be December.
The sun is going down.
Another day is ending.
They will keep ending just like this one until it is December.
Why not December?
And besides, haven't you heard yourself say, "It's almost Christmas? Where did the time go? I still haven't done all my shopping."
It started with this August evening wondering what you're going to get Aunt Caroline who is so finicky and hard to please.

First Published

"Four Stories for Aki and Other Treats." California Living 14 Jan. 1979: 5-7.
The magazine of the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle.
Described as "a compendium of short stories." Featured seven stories: "The Short Story," "Walking Toward December," "The Purpose," "Meat," "The Great Golden Telescope," "Harmonica High," and "Her Last Known Boyfriend." The first two stories: "The Short Story" and "Walking Toward December" were not collected. The other five were all collected in The Tokyo-Montana Express. The last, "Her Last Known Boyfriend" was retitled "Her Last Known Boyfriend a Canadian Airman."

1981

"The Last of What's Left"
The children gathered solemnly like shadows from the Bible to divide among themselves the last of what was left, which was barely nothing compared to what had once been, but it was more than being dead, so they had been taught for centuries.

They each took their portion which could only be counted with a microscope, and then went silently in different directions, never to see each other again.

There was no reason to.

They left behind an empty place where everything had once been.

First Published

"Three by Richard Brautigan." Corona (2) 1981: 12-14.
Featured three stories: "The Last of What's Left," "Closets," and "The Grasshopper's Mirror."

Background

Michael Sexson, editor of Corona said,

I think we called them stories because Richard said so. They seem tiny short stories, but it would not be wrong to call them poems either. Notice that we evaded the issue in the text by calling it "Three by Richard Brautigan."

"Closets"
I remember I once went through a period of counting closets in haunted houses. I was inbetween love affairs. I had no idea what would happen next with my heart or if anything would ever happen again, so I counted closets in haunted houses.

I was glad when it was over.

7,914,322 closets is too many, not to speak of walking up the stairs to each haunted house and slowly opening the front door.

First Published

"Three by Richard Brautigan." Corona (2) 1981: 12-14.
Featured three stories: "The Last of What's Left," "Closets," and "The Grasshopper's Mirror."

Background

Michael Sexson, editor of Corona said,

I think we called them stories because Richard said so. They seem tiny short stories, but it would not be wrong to call them poems either. Notice that we evaded the issue in the text by calling it "Three by Richard Brautigan."

"The Grasshopper's Mirror"
Yesterday I thought I saw my first grasshopper of summer, something moved grasshopperly in the grass, but I didn’t actually see it. I saw something else, perhaps the wind or the ghost of a grasshopper, trying to remember last year when it was alive.

Today for certain the first grasshopper of summer jumped right onto the road in front of me. There was nothing haunted to its presence. It was just suddenly there.

I will be seeing grasshoppers for the next four months, on into October when the cold nights and snow will change it into what I thought was a grasshopper yesterday, a lingering uneasy gesture in the grass.

First Published

"Three by Richard Brautigan." Corona (2) 1981: 12-14.
Featured three stories: "The Last of What's Left," "Closets," and "The Grasshopper's Mirror."

Background

Michael Sexson, editor of Corona said,

I think we called them stories because Richard said so. They seem tiny short stories, but it would not be wrong to call them poems either. Notice that we evaded the issue in the text by calling it "Three by Richard Brautigan."

"The Lost Tree"
There were a lot of things that we could have talked about. Last year we made love under a tree in the woods. There was a nice patch of soft, perfect for love-making grass under a tree. It was a hot afternoon and the tree lent our passion its shade.

This spring I've gone for some walks down in the woods but mysteriously I can't find that tree. Not that I've deliberately gone seeking it like a ghoul wanting to feast on the ghost of a dead passion. I just thought that somehow upon a spring walk, I must just come across that tree, but I haven't. I don't know what I would think if I were to find that tree. I know that I would not sit down underneath it or in the future bring another woman to that tree.

There were a lot of things that we could have talked about.

We walked back to the house in silence. I felt happy. I didn't know at that time that every step we took was a step toward walking out of each other's lives.

Textual References

In July 1980, Brautigan visited Boulder, Colorado, where he was writer-in-residence at the University of Colorado Boulder. There he met Masako Kano. This poem is about a tree in Boulder, under which Brautigan and Kano had frequent sex.

First Published

"Richard Brautigan: Tokyo and Montana." Friends of the Washington Review of the Arts 9(5) Feb./Mar. 1984: 9.
Featured this story, a poem titled "Night Flowing River," and a photograph of Brautigan by Toby Thompson.

May 1968"An Apartment on Telegraph Hill"
The narrator (a thinly disguised Brautigan), a sculptor whose work "had long since ceased to yield any satisfaction" and who "had no interest in women except to get occasionally laid when I got bored with getting drunk and it took a really good woman to get me away from the bottle" dreamed of having "a girlfriend on Telegraph Hill" with a nice apartment. "Coming from a poor family, I've always been attracted to women above my station."

"Key to the Frogs of South-Western Australia"
A story about a writer who attempts to write a spontaneous novel, thinking to use "Key to the Frogs of South-Western Australia" as the title. Every time he starts, however, he remembers a short story by Wallace Stegner, "Field Guide to Western Birds," and its metaphors of observing and identifying life (outward endeavors) rather than writing (an inward endeavor), and stops. The title came from a book Brautigan purchased prior to starting this story.

Brautigan and his first wife, Virginia (Ginny) Dionne Alder, separated 24 December 1962, when he learned of Virginia's affair with his friend, Anthony (Tony) Frederic Aste. Virginia, and daughter, Ianthe, moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, with Aste. Early in October 1963, they returned to San Francisco. Brautigan wrote about the changes he saw in Ianthe in a series of unpublished stories. In one, "To Love a Child in California the Way Love Should Be," he writes about the heartache of having to leave after visiting with Ianthe for only one-half hour. Her crying, he wrote, followed him down the stairs as he walked away.

Fall 1963
"The Haight-Ashbury Crawdad"
Brautigan describes one of his favorite walks in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, saying "it's beautiful where Haight Street meets Stanyan Street at the Golden Gate Park. I like . . . to enjoy the last hour before sundown."

1979
"Walking Mushrooms," "The Umbrella Photograph," and "Last Words about What Came and Went Yesterday"
All three written in Japan during Brautigan's 1979 visit. "Last Words about What Came and Went Yesterday" concerns piles of shattered umbrellas following a typhoon.

September 1981
"My Name Forgotten in the Grass"
A single paragraph story about Brautigan's feelings about his daughter Ianthe's wedding to Paul Swensen.

She is my only daughter, and the end of my family name. [. . .] My name became the shadow of an old deer bone among the green grass that doesn't know its name.

January 1984"Umbrellas in the Snow"
Written while Brautigan stayed at the Owl Hotel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, concerning his surprise to see residents break out their umbrellas with the first snow of the year.

"Mussels"
Written while Brautigan stayed at the Owl Hotel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, concerning a nearby sandwich shop. The hot mussel sandwich could be as good as any reason for returning to Amsterdam.

"Sandwalker"
Written while Brautigan stayed at the Owl Hotel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, concerning a fantasy of wanting to reach through the wall of his hotel room and kill a young boy in the next room who was keeping him awake.

"The Habitue"
Written while Brautigan stayed at the Owl Hotel in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, concerning getting his shoes repaired.

April 1984"Added Days"
Vague memories from Brautigan's childhood.
Written while Brautigan stayed at the Keio Plaza Hotel, in Tokyo, Japan.

"The Ad"
A story about a large gingerbread cottage in the lobby of the Keio Plaza Hotel, in Tokyo, Japan. Brautigan included observations of a man vacuuming crumbs from the carpet in front of the cottage, and two women posing for a photograph in front of the cottage.